How far back do your records need to go?

Three years is the common minimum, whether measured as time trading or time on record. Pewter, Nyne and Ventra all say three in their ads, and a few brokers will take two. Buyers with no floor still ask the question, because years feed straight into the price.

History sits in layers. Email may go back to opening day. Field service or practice software starts the year you switched to it. Paper job folders sit in a back room.

Write down, per system, the first year with usable records: email, accounting (QuickBooks, Xero), CRM, job or project tool, ticket queue and shared drives. That list makes the first call faster and your estimate more accurate.

A longer record helps: Cielo24 reportedly got a six-figure sum for Slack, Jira and email spanning 13 years. Some brokers say older dispatch records pay more. Old records are most valuable when they connect to newer ones and show the same work over time.

Switched systems and binned the old one? Those years may have gone with it. An old server sitting in a storeroom could be holding your earliest, fullest records. See before you wipe the old server.